


He's lost control

by ClaraCivry (Kat_Of_Dresden)



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Illya struggles with his anger issues, Movie Tag, slightly angsty
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-27
Updated: 2015-08-30
Packaged: 2018-04-17 10:44:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4663683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kat_Of_Dresden/pseuds/ClaraCivry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of times in which Illya contained himself. A bunch of times where he lost control.</p><p>1. Illya is not feeling very well, Gaby says, and then he locks himself up in the bathroom. There is a storm underneath the surface of a collected spy.</p><p>2. The criminal threatened Gaby. And he paid for it.</p><p>3. They expect him to kill Solo for that tape, they bring up Siberia again. The hotel room bears the brunt of his anger.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Rome

There was a storm in his gut and he hated it. 

Illya was supposed to be stronger than this. Illya was supposed to be better, not lose control like that, maintain himself on character despite what was thrown at him. But no, he had blown up with those italian kids, and possibly endangered the whole mission. This was the exact thing that had gotten him in trouble so many times, the reason he'd had to be disciplined every time and he had fallen into it, fallen again. 

So he had fished Miss Teller out of there, as quick as possible, so his mistake wasn't all that obvious. Gaby, upon seeing how distressed her fake-boyfriend was excused them saying that Illya wasn't feeling well and left in a hurry. 

On their way to the hotel, she wondered if her excuse hadn't been actually the truth, as Illya looked pale and anxious, generally unwell. When she asked what had happened he just said that it didn't have to with the mission and that she didn't need to know. He spent the rest of the trip quiet and she wondered if this was how it was all going to be. He'd been more chatty on the way to the races, going through the details of their cover. Maybe it was nothing and it was just him being Russian. Probably. But there was something different about him. 

On Illya's head, one word was repeating constantly. 

Consequences.

Every time he did something like that, something he was not supposed to do, there were consequences, for the mission and for himself. Illya remembers bitter years of electro shocks after his “episodes” (sometimes they were real epsiodes, were he lost control of hismelf, other times it was simply when he disobeyed). They told him that the electro shocks were not a punishment, that they were therapy, that they were supposed to help but they were made in a way that always left weak, and nauseous. There was a right way to do that therapy, and that was not it. That was a punishment, something to keep him in line. 

Like they will punish you when they learn about what you have done with those men of the toilet.

You already let the girl escape with the american when you were supposed to retrieve her. No more mistakes will be tolerated. 

There will be consequences. 

“Are you all right?” Gaby asked from the seat next to his. 

She didn't like the increasing pallor of her companion, or the way in which his fist were closed tight enough to draw blood from the palms. Could he still be upset about what uncle Rudy had said? It had been quite mean, but she didn't think it would affect the Russian quite so much. Could he just be jealous because Vinciguerra had invited her to lunch? 

“I'm fine.”

Illya was not fine. He looked at his hands and saw what he'd done again and again. He was supposed to be over that, over the mental issues – supposed to be the perfect agent, but that was far from true. It would have been fine if it was only tables turned and thinly veiled anger in fron of strangers but he'd crossed the line. He lost control again – he lost control. 

When they finally got to their room, a still silent Illya ran to the bathroom, locked himself in and was violently sick. Whatever enemy he faced, he knew he was his own worst enemy, and that he could screw everything just by hearing the wrong word. By not being calm enough. It had nearly happened when Solo spoke about his mother, when they took his watch, and now... This mission was being harder on him than most, and sometimes even the KGB's best was overwhelmed. 

Put yourself together. 

Put yourself together. 

Put...

He looked at his reflection on the mirror. Sometimes, he couldn't recognise the man there. He'd played so many roles, been educated and undergone therapy so many times that he forgot who he really was. And who was Illya Kuryakin if you took out the KGB? No one. Just violence with no end, violence and anger, and..... No. That's been enough. 

Illya sat on the floor of his bathroom, closed his eyes and breathed for a moment. He wasn't going to let anyone else dictate who he was. He would deal with the consequences when they came, as he always had. For a while, he thought of nothing – just remembered more peaceful times. The cold of his home town. Maybe that was a factor of his control loss, the terrible heat of Rome. But it was okay. It was over. 

After a few minutes Illya composed himself, cleaned the toilet and started looking for an excuse for his prolonged stay in the bathroom, he couldn't just get out without a story, much less tell the truth. He was a professional and had to act like it. Luckily for him, he had his camera with him, and enough materials to make some sort of dark room, maybe get something done. 

By the time Solo was back he had a new clue in his pictures and everyone just asumed that he'd been all that time working with the pictures. Which was good – Illya already had enough cracks in indestructible façade. 

They didn't have to know. They wouldn't know.

That was the Russian way.


	2. Night

“Oh, yes, I'll have my have fun with you.... I think I'll start with the girl”

And so that idiot criminal approached Gaby, and Illya saw red. Despite the beating he'd taken, he found strength where there shouldn't be any and broke down the chains of the cuffs that where binding him to that metal pipe and charged against the man.

Without any other weapon available, he simply threw the criminal to the floor and started punching him, in the face, repeteadly. There was blood on the floor and Illya kept punching. The man was unconscious and Illya kept at it. How dare he threaten Gaby. He dare look at her with those eyes. He had to be stopped. For a moment, this man wasn't only him.

This man was everyone who'd laughed at him. Everyone who'd mocked his parents. Each and every person who had doubted him because of his mental issues. Each and every person who'd assumed that because he was a big, muscly guy, he was uncapable of independent thinking. All the people that, one by one, had abandoned him. He was all of them at the same time, and Illya was hardly aware of what he was doing.

His hand was getting redder and redder and the blood seeped on the floor. _Useless child, son of a traitor. Too unstable despite his potential, I don't think we can get anything decent out of this one. Too big. Too angry._

“Peril! Leave something so he can rot in jail, will you? We have enough for a conviction.”

Napoleon's voice said behind him.

And then he realised, went back to himself. You couldn't stop.

“Yeah, come here, get us out of these cuffs.”

Illya stopped for a minute to look at what he'd done. The broken metal chain. The disfigured face of that crook. His crimsom stained hand. The blood on the floor. He'd done this. Almost in auto-pilot Illya freed his companions and simply left, disappeared without uttering another word. He thought he had overcome this kind of episode, but apparently he was wrong.

After everything was sorted out, Gaby couldn't find Illya, and was worried. She knew that he could take care of himself, of course, but she there had been something in his eyes when he'd uncuffed her... A kind of sorrow that she'd never seen in him, deep-rooted, unphathomable. Unending. And Gaby didn't know how he'd gotten over his psychotic breaks and aggressive urges, she didn't know how he coped apart from breaking furniture – and somehow, she knew this time that wouldn't cut it.

Sadly, he wasn't wearing any trackers, but with the help of Napoleon they found him on the balcony of an abandoned building. They decided that Gaby would go alone first, to avoid overwhelming him.

“What are you doing here?” Illya said, before she even made a sound to let him know she was in the balcony.

“I was looking for you.”

Illya was silent, looking at the street underneath instead of at her companion. He didn't know if he could face her – not after losing control like that.

“You should leave.” He said, not turning around.

“I wanted to thank you for saving us – and defending me like you did.”

She appeared next to him and took his hand. The knuckles were still raw and bloody and one of the fingers seemed broken.

“You should get this looked at.”

Illya was still silent, a distant look in his eyes.

Gaby just stayed there, wondering if maybe she should let him be alone, think things through. But the thought was bitter, because she knew that he'd spent most of his alone, and she wanted to let him know that was not the case anymore, that they were there for him, even if his darkest moments. So she just stayed, in the cold of the night, caressing if wrecked enormous hand, even if she was extremely tired after the mission, looking at the street from the balcony.

After a while, Illya's eyes focused on her.

“Aren't you afraid?”

“Afraid of what?”

“Afraid of me. Afraid that I will hurt you.”

Every time he lost control like had that day, Illya feared that the next time, it wouldn't be a crook, that he wouldn't be able to calm himself down. The thought hadn't even occured to Gaby, with the Russian being as protective of them as he was.

“Do you want to hurt me?”

“Of course not.”

“Then I don't think you will. I have faith in you, Illya.”

“Maybe you shouldn't have to.”

“Maybe you should have more.”

There was another silent moment. Gaby kept caressing the battered hand with unprecented gentleness.

“We all have our dark sides, Illya, but you've handled yours beautifully so far. Don't let a bump on the road stop you.”

His eyes seemed even bluer than usual as he looked back at her.

“You're too good to me, chop shop girl.”

She smiled.

“Come, let's go back to the hotel, I'll bandage that hand.”

“Thank you.”

“My pleasure.”


	3. The room of the Plaza hotel in Rome

There is a moment of pause.

Before Illya completely loses it and thrashes the whole room, there is a moment of pause. A moment to digest everything. The fact that Solo has the tape, the fact that he has to kill him to retrieve it. The fact that, yet again, he has been threatened with Siberia if he didn't comply. 

He'd done everything for his country, had given everything, his mind, his soul, his body. He had taken bullets for Russia, had endured torture, had completed the most atrocious exercises and now, Now, now he had to eliminate the man who had saved his life, who had treated him as an equal, because of some nuclear secrets that if used would probably cost the life of thousands of people. 

They'd taken away his free will, and backed him into a corner again, forced him to do what he hated to do. He had drowned on that mission, a motorbike had fell on top of him, it was him who had lost the only thing of his father's he still had of his father for the sake of the mission - it was him who had ran, and fell onto solid ground, him who had sweated, and bled, and him had risked everything as he always, as he had done for years! He had been the perfect soldier for so long, had gone the distance, had kept quiet, and yet AND YET they still dared threatened him with the Gulag, they forced him to kill Solo and Illya knew that he had no choice, knew that the americans couldn't have that - but damn, IT HURT, IT HURT SO MUCH. 

And none of that broken furniture provided any relief, because he deserved praise, damnit, not this crap on top of anything else. There was a posibility that he wouldn't see Gaby ever again and now he had to take out Solo and why were the only things in his life taken, they were always taken from him and the vases shattering reminded him of broken glass in other times of his life and no, NO, NO

I don't want to do it, I've had enough, I don't want to do it

You have to

I DON'T WANT TO DO IT

YOU HAVE NO CHOICE!

Yes, he had no choice and that stung so much. He couldn't choose to see Gaby again, he couldn't choose to leave Solo alone, he could only choose between completing the mission and being sent to where his father had died. 

So he went to Solo's room, knowing what he had to do - but still raging, still hurt, still hating the mission but knowing that he had no choice, he had no choice.   
And then Solo, instead of fighting him, gave him back his father's watch, and he was so happy, so relieved, and so strangely touched that Solo had retrieved it for him (nobody ever had nice gestures with him) and the anger disappeared. Solo told him that it was his mission to kill him if necessary too, but somehow, it came absolutely easy to him to disregard that order and simply suggest that they had their drink on the roof and destroy the tape. 

And Illya could have wept with joy, because now he didn't have to do it and it would be okay. There were things he had to learn from Solo, that much was clear.

Fortunately, he would have time to do so.

Away from Siberia, and with his friends.  
Illya had never been more calm.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! 
> 
> Inspired by Joy Division's She's lost control.
> 
> Feedback makes my day! Please do leave some if you enjoyed! Thanksss


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